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John
M. Ridland
reads
My First Villanelle
in Real Audio
format.
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I had no feelings when I heard she’d died.
When that nail punched against my multi-ply,
It punctured neither top nor underside.
Thirty years earlier I would have cried,
As when her cold screwdriver used to pry
My heart apart. The day I heard she’d died,
wheeled my daughter’s bike out for a ride.
Along the creek I plucked two bay leaves—why?
They punctured neither top nor underside.
It wasn’t, for the record, suicide:
Two, three packs daily, and the lungs comply.
I could remember, when I heard she’d died,
Her amber fingertips and how my pride
Flagged as she scrubbed me crazy with her psy-
chiatric snake oil, top or underside,
Or both. Her influence could not be denied,
Though now it’s done, I’m tempted to deny
I had no feelings when I heard she’d died
Which punctured either top or underside.
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